


Do Not Go Gentle

by thimble



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Character Study, Gen, backseat possession, mentions of lust's canon 'romances' like lujon the ishvalan brothers and scar, universe hopping, with cameos of the other homonculi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 00:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19779679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/pseuds/thimble
Summary: This isn't the past, it's something new entirely, and whoever's body she's currently in is not her.Not in the ways that matter.For reasons unknown to her, Lust wakes up in the body of her other self.





	Do Not Go Gentle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Women Made Fullmetal](https://twitter.com/WMFzine) zine.

That she wakes at all is a surprise both terrifying and straightforward. The closest that homunculi have to dreaming are the gasping breaths between each little death, that sliver of darkness in their vision where nothingness resides. But whatever this is — it's something else altogether.

The body she occupies is the same: still deathly pale, still a road map of curves. Hair dark and heavy curls along her throat and her nails are still the spears they've always been. But this body, in all its resemblances, is not hers to call her own. Not when it moves on someone else's command; not when she's seeing through someone else's eyes. Hers, but not hers. 

Her from the past, or perhaps the future. If this is not a dream then maybe it's a memory she's forced to relive, and if not that then a vision she must endure and learn from. Father has done stranger things in the name of fortifying his children.

Lior unfolds how she remembers it, including the false stone, the false prophet, the false miracles — even the Elrics' intervention. Gluttony devours Cornello, staining the floor the way it did before; Envy undertakes the priest's form, flashing her a flawless imitation of his filthy smile and making her skin crawl in a way it already has. 

A memory, then, is the right conclusion, up until it isn't. 

She's in Central's library, candelabra in hand, having realized that setting the whole place alight is much easier than scouring all the shelves for Marcoh's damned notes, when the first change transpires. 

Scar, appearing earlier than he should; Scar, looking at her like he's seeing a ghost instead of a monster. 

They still fight; the library still goes up in flames. That much are constants. However, it's clear now that this isn't the past, that it's something new entirely, and that whoever's body she's currently in is not her.

Not in the ways that matter.

* * *

But Lust, in any other form, would still be woven from desire, and this Lust's desires are so foreign that she can hardly believe they could ever share a name.

At times, the differences trickle slowly, blood budding from a needle prick; at others, they gush out as if from a vein slit nice and proper, draining out the certainties she used to hold about herself.

Fullmetal asks about their intentions, what use they could have for a stone, and her namesake's reply is incomprehensible in its simplicity:

"We want to be human. That's all."

To be a homunculus is to be a complete and perfect being — why would they, why would  _ she —  _ ever want to become otherwise?

Even Greed from this world, despite surrounding himself with lesser creatures, still regards them like possessions. Loyalty from pawns only reinforces what they are, after all.

(Some things are the same.)

Greed meets his end differently, but meet it he still does. Envy is quick to speak ill of him, their words bearing no shortage of scorn, and Gluttony never has much to say beyond announcing his appetite, yet her—

_ This _ her—

Almost sounds wistful when she wonders where he could've gone.

(Some things are not.)

She had watched Greed die, once, laughing the whole way as Father delivered his final judgment, and had felt more boredom than curiosity, more revulsion than pity, secure in the knowledge that that would never be her.

It had been nothing like this, this  _ melancholy _ , how this version of her loses herself in questions that none of them have the answers to.

"Have you ever wondered where we come from, or where we go after we're dead?"

Beside her, Gluttony is hungry, and in front of her Envy is unimpressed.

"We're alive right now. We don't have to wonder anything. Isn't that enough?"

They leave without ceremony and she can't even nod her assent, not when this other her glances out the window again, the farthest thing from satisfied. 

* * *

She can't fathom why she's here, and if the turbulence in this other her's mind is anything to go by, neither does she. 

By here, she means in a carriage headed towards a village she had abandoned. By here, she means beside a man who can't decide if she's savior or lover. By here, she means bound to a lie she had spun two years ago; a lie that unraveled too closely to truth. 

Again, she tells him how to save his people. Again, she sinks into his embrace as he tells her of his devotion.

This time, he says he won't let her go. 

This time, she takes the heart he'd so valiantly offered and pierces through it, slick and easy as a butcher's knife through meat. 

"You are my little mistake. Nothing more."

There's relief, however faint, in seeing the light leave Lujon's eyes. Maybe she's finally done with this foolishness. 

Though there's foolishness as well in speaking too soon. 

Because memories arrive like unwanted visitors — and these truly are memories, at least, of this other her. Or who this other her used to be.

Scar is in them, along with a man who she somehow knows as his brother. Being what she is, she's more than accustomed to men looking at her in a certain manner; she expects it, uses it to her advantage, not unlike how they want to use her one way or another. 

But there was no such notion in the eyes from the memories. They gazed at her as Lujon had, promising her the world even if, in Scar's case, he did not say it out loud. 

None of this has to do with her growing desperation to be human, less like a flower from concrete and more like a persistent weed in a carefully toiled garden.

"Don't you think it's time to lay this infatuated schoolgirl act to rest?"

She almost can't blame this Pride for his contempt, not when his suspicions are confirmed with the other her's betrayal of their master. It is this act alone that serves as a wedge between this Lust and Lust herself, affirming their differences more than any musings on love or death ever could. 

Lust would never disobey Father.

(Would she?

* * *

Pathetic is how she'd viewed humans in the throes of romance, and pathetic still is how she views it now, or whatever passes for it between this body's owner and Scar. 

"You were in love with me."

"Not you. Her."

"I could become her."

His disdain in response seems sobering, putting him under no illusions about what she is, no matter who she'd been long ago. Lust cannot say the same for the other her, so blinded by the prospect of humanity that she insists on impossible things like resurrection, or happy endings. 

If it began with her defiance, then asking for Scar's real name becomes the point from which she can't return. It's too futile, too sentimental — everything a homunculus should not be. 

Lust can only watch as the other her sheds first her loyalty to a woman who would never give her what she wants, then her fear of said woman, determining that she has nothing left to lose.

But there has only ever been one destination for this path she'd chosen to take, and Lust realizes belatedly that it was the destination this other her had always meant to go. 

"Isn't this what you wanted? You wanted to become human so you could die, right?"

This Wrath's words are questioning rather than accusing, the mystery of it so laughably simple, put in childish terms. She wretches up red stones and repeats it to herself, finally understanding so close to the finish line. 

To find out what comes next. To escape this world's suffering. To meet with those who have already parted. 

All such human reasons, along with the split-second of fear before Wrath's lethal blow, the regret of not doing more with the second chance she'd been given. 

Human at the very end, after all.

(Pathetic.)

* * *

She wakes up as herself again — slightly less surprised at the concept of  _ waking _ — and in the days that follow, notices how everything is so much the same, and also not.

Strange, to return to a Pride who is not that other Pride, to meet Wrath and to remember Sloth without knowing them as intimately as she had. Strange, to compare Dante to Father, and to find they are more alike than they are different.

Strange to have a purpose again, which at the moment entails waiting for Jean at an outdoor table and smiling at the roses he brings. The way he looks at her… she's seen that before. Not as hopelessly gone as Lujon or the Ishvalan brothers, but give it enough time and it might be.

Would she squander it now, like that other self wished she didn't?

She's smiling at Jean still when she pierces through him, as remorseless as it is sweet.

_ Of course. _

Love is what had doomed every man who so much looked at that other her, and what brings this woman to her knees, bullets and tears both spent; why would she want any part of it?

It is death she does not run from, sinking instead into its embrace. Amidst the flames she grins, beatific, as she delivers upon Mustang her final judgment. To be a homunculus is to have no need for what lies on the other side.

To be a homunculus is to accept her ending as neither happy nor sad — it simply is.

(Unsightly, but beautiful in its violence.)

Lust has fulfilled her purpose, and she will leave this world the way she had entered it: perfect and complete.

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't decide which lust to dive into for this zine so i was like, why not both? i also wanted to flesh out fmab lust more, since her monstrosity was compelling but wasn't as dived into as i would've liked.
> 
> thank you for reading! <3


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